Frostburg mining journal. [volume] (Frostburg, Md.) 1871-1913, 1887-07-09
deceased standing between
kLa >1. ILJ.z Ill,

tne Otner person had
stood back some ten feet in the frlrrow.
Deceased had then started on, the other
presumably following and still talking, until
suddenly and stealthily he had, from be-
hind struck his victim with a sharp knife
just below and shaving off a part of the
fifth rib of the left side and severing the
heart completely. The victim had fallen
forward upon the frame of the pillow while
the horses, as shown by the blood, had gone
on some distance and until the pillow had
fallen over, when they had stopped. The
deceased was found some time in the night
his failure to come home having led to q
search for him, but still remained
where found awaiting the coroner's in
quest, now in progress. The tramping
of hundred feet had rendered any salts
factory examination of tracks Immediately
about the scene impracticable; but, for
tunately, the people who had gathered had
not sufficiently recovered from the first
effects of the shock to prosecute their investi-
cation beyond very narrow limits.
Still governed by the impetuous move
ments of my ardent friend, soon found
myself following with him, track, south
ward, across the plowed part of the field.
This track, when first seen, indicated a
person travelling in an ordinary walk.
and there was, 30 far, nothing peculiarly
observable in the footprints. They might,
apparently, have been made by any
one wearing common coarse No.
boot or sLoe. But some 200 yards away
as I followed Blake, who was walking
rapidly heard him exclaim Look, Gully
For Gods sake lookp' was looking by
this time at the imprint of the track we were
pursuing, where the culprit had stepped
upon the surface, smooth as glass, of the up
turned mold, leaving as perfect an impress OF
the left foot as if It had been made in putty
prepared for the purpose. Every smallest
detail of the sole and heel of the boot lay
there. And what added to the interest and
importance of it was the fact that there were
marks to distinguish it from 10000 other
tracks! In short, as Blake said: "If every
man in the county were to make track with
his left foot in this field, there would be but
one like this and that one would be the track
of the left foot of Dave Carr's murderer"
The boot had been mended. The wearer
had worn off the sole exactly on the ball of
the foot, back of the great toe, the size of a
silver dollar, while the sole elsewhere ap-
peared to be but slightly worn. The cobbler
in mending the boot had pegged a thick,
round piece of leather here, the imprint
whereof was perfect in every detail, even to
the pegs. The heel on the inner edge had
also been worn away and had been mended
by triangular piece of heavy sole leather,
fastened with iron tacks OF nails with heavy,
square heads, while row of smaller tacks had
been driven around the rest of the heel, and
into the centre of the heel one Of the large
square-headed tacks had been driven; but,
as if afraid if sent home it would go through
the heel and plague the wearer, it had been
left about the sixteenth of an inch above the
surface.
Fastening to a fallen poplar tree, Blake
procured some bark. He came back pant
ing with excitement. He was noted for his
ingenuity, having been bred a carpenter and
joiner. He proceeded with patience quite
surprising to reproduce out Of the bark the
sole and heel of the culprit's left shoe. In
twenty minutes his work was so well done
that when he laid the wrought bark down
and gently pressed it into the mold by plac-
ing his foot upon it, no one on its removal
could have distinguished the two imprints.
The patch on the sole, the wooden pegs the
triangular piece on the heel with the square
nails, the hob nail in the centre of the
heel, all were there.
But there was one thought, at first vaguely
intruding itself upon my mind, now found